Another proposed Star Trek film, this time by Gene Roddenberry’s then assistant Jon Povill.

BACKGROUND

Star Trek (now often called Star Trek: The Original Series), was a science fiction series that went for 3 seasons from 1966 – 1969. Although it was cancelled, it gathered a cult following, which is why you already knew that bit. It also spawned a Saturday morning cartoon (also called Star Trek, but now often called Star Trek: The Animated Series) for two seasons from 1973 to 1974. The continued interest in Star Trek lead to Paramount to become interested in making a feature film, Gene Roddenberry’s first attempt “The God Thing” was rejected. Then in 1975 his assistant Jon Povill wrote treatment.

CONCEPT

When Scotty accidentally introduces advanced technology to Earth in 1937, an alternate timeline is created in which Earth is enslaved by a central computer and Star Trek and the Federation never existed. The crew of the Enterprise must find Scotty and undo his mistake, added by a plasma entity (which turns out to be an hyper-evolved human from the alternate timeline.)

REJECTION

Although Roddenberry initially rejected Povill’s idea, Gene eventually began to work with Jon on the script. However, Paramount began to look at number of different ideas until Planet of the Titans was given the go-ahead.

LEGACY

Povill worked on Star Trek: Phase II, writing the episode “The Child.” He also worked as an associate producer on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, being responsible for the resolution of the film. He went on to write episodes of Sliders and The Outer Limits and was responsible for the original script to Total Recall.